Oh oui! 'Zis ees dee one. Ze sacred elixir. Culinary staple of restaurants zee world ovair:
French Onion Soup
Sadly many a restaurant botches this masterful masterpiece of savoury soupy goodness. Not to worry my wee cherie. You can make your own!
You will need:
3 to a million onions (I usually use about 6 or so)
2tbsp to 1/2 cup butter
3tbsp to 1/4 cup olive oil
4 to a million cups of soup stock (beef or veggie)
2 to a few tsp of Herbes de Provence (or whatever, use fresh herbiage if you have it)
Wine? (Red or White, Purple or Rose?)
Salt and Pepper
Bread?
Cheese? (some cheddar or smoked gruyere or what-have-you to put on top)
Ok, so French Onion Soup is really quite easy. The key ingredient here that is often botched in restaurants is...time (see the previous Zen story if you haven't read it, if you have it couldn't hurt to read it again).
1. So start with ze onions. Get yourself a big soup pot of dutch over going about medium heat on the stove. Throw in your butter and olive oil. How much? Up to you. Are you using a few or a bushel of onions? Do you like your soup with a cleaner finish or do you love sumptuous levels of fat and oil floating on the surface? This time around I used my standard 6 onions, a quarter stick of butter (3 tbsp), and a good glug of olive oil (about 4 tbsp). Having sampled the end result I may even have preferred to have gone the full half stick of butter (1/4 cup).
A word or few on onion chopping. You can go zis way:
Or you can go zis way:
Now, I prefer the former over the latter 'cause I like the way the onion splinters but you have it your way. When I go the latter way I often split the onion so there won't be long tendrils of onion to complicate your soup slurping satisfaction later.
Ok, zat is zat.
2. Just keep slicing your onions and adding them to your pot as your slicing. Give them a stir to keep everything happy while you are slicing.
2. Now this is the key part. You can turn your heat up medium-high to brown your onions but...DON'T GO ANYWHERE. Initially you'll need to stir every minute or so but as the onions saute they will progress toward burning via a geometric acceleration. Ideally if you had an hour or two to spend making the best soup ever you would incrementally turn down the heat at the onions cooked until you obtained a deep mahogany brown-purple colour. On this occasion I didn't have such luxury available to me. So...continuing on...
Not nearly enough, keep going...
Now, everyone is open to the foibles of their own admonishments. I was trying to multitask while making my soup this time and so I did burn a bit to the bottom of the pan. No worries!! Don't drive yourself crazy trying to scrape the burny bits up. Just stir away until you've got your onions looking nice and brown.
3. Now is the time to deglaze with your wine or stock. I chose red wine this time and went for a cup of it. Honestly, it was a bit much in my opinion. I have seen recipes that recommend two cups. I'm a less is more kind of guy. I used:
Use whatever you like but don't use cheap cheap wine. Cooking wine isn't for cooking. It isn't for anything. It is crap. You may however equally use any kind of wine that suits your fancy, or none.
4. Now you've deglazed with your wine (or not) you can go ahead and add your stock, seasonings, and herbs. I start with a minimum of each. You can add stock incrementally until you've the amount of soup you want without sacrificing richness and flavour. I used about 6 or 7 cups of Knorr instant beef stock this time around. Herb wise I used a little dried sage and oregano this time. Not your typical accoutrements for French Onion Soup but its what I had. If you have fresh herbs I would add them later. I also threw in a bay leaf.
5. Simmer this awhile and add stock, adjust seasoning and herbs as you see fit. That's it really.
6. You can serve this as is or naturally you can do the traditional hunk of baguette (or what have you bread wise) floated on your soup in a bowl, and broil some cheese on top of it in the oven (or use you're nifty blowtorch if you're fancy like that if you like). This time around I simply grated some good old cheddar (local from Mapledale Farms) in there before serving it to my family.
There verdict from the fam was favourable though I felt this was not my best effort. It could have been savourier, more scumdiddlyuptious. I tried to cheat the gods of time and I received my modicum of punishment for it. My apologies O culinary gods and godesses, please don't hate me forever. In the eating frenzy with the fam I didn't snap a picture of the proceeds but it should look something like this:
